Inchcolm

Today I had all these grand plans for staying at home and doing lots of writing, but the weather was so glorious that we just had to go out and have an adventure instead. There will be plenty of wet miserable weekends where I'll really want to go out but will have to stay indoors, so I thought we'd better make the most of this lovely one, it might be the last one we see till May! (I hope not!). Even though it was sunny I was expecting it to be quite cold, but at one point I had to take off not only my coat but also my jumper and was there in my Tshirt! In Scotland! In September!

We headed over to Queensferry (as an aside, I had no idea how pretty Queensferry was, at least the bit by the river is, all cobbled streets and painted houses and shops) and caught the ferry Maid of the Forth over to Inchcolm Island, which is one of four islands in the Firth of Forth. Unlike the west of Scotland, which is abundantly blessed with islands (I have an ambition to visit as many of them as possible, as well as the Northern Isles) there are very very few islands at all on the east coast, really only the islands in the Firth of Forth. Inchcolm is the home of a 12th century Augustinian abbey which is remarkably well preserved and very interesting (it's now looked after by Historic Scotland), and also (much like the other Forth islands) has some old gun batteries and suchlike from the two world wars - the islands were heavily fortified to protect Edinburgh, the Forth Bridge, and Rosyth shipyard, all of which were potential wartime targets.

The boat trip takes about half an hour, starting off at the base of the Forth Rail Bridge (what an amazing structure that is too!). They then drop you off for about an hour and a half to explore the island, and then come and pick you up. An hour and a half was plenty to see everything, but it is definitely somewhere I'd be happy to visit again. Apparently dolphins and porpoises are quite a common sight from the boat, we didn't see any today sadly but we did spot a couple of seals sunbathing on one of the buoys.

Definitely recommended, what a great day out. Though I wonder if it's a sign of age, more than once while wandering round and thinking about how lucky we were with the weather, I found myself thinking I should have put some washing out to dry!